EMIA RX-178 Gundam Mk II (Titans Unit 03)

Height: 11cm to top of head, 11.5cm to top of backpack.

Articulation: 36 total points of articulation: double-jointed neck; 7 points in arms- double jointed shoulder, ball-jointed shoulder armor, pre-elbow swivel, double jointed elbow, ball-jointed wrist; mid-torso ball-joint; ball-jointed waist; 9 points in each leg- ball jointed hip, thigh swivel, triple-jointed knee, double-jointed ankle, ball-jointed pistons, hinged toe.

Accessories: Beam Sabers x2, Beam Rifle with additional magazines x2, Hyper Bazooka, Vulcan Pod, Shield, Extra Hands x4

Colors: Painted dark blue, black, yellow, red, dark gray, medium gray, green, white(lettering) and black and red inks (panel lining). Molded clear pink (Beam Saber blades).

Release Data: Released January 20th, 2005 in Japan at a price of ¥1800. This item is no longer in production as of this review (May 23rd, 2005).

Gallery: 9 images.

Author: RAC

The Figure

The Gundam Mk-II is the second Gundam design ever seen onscreen, and also the second EMIA. And the third. And the fourth and fifth. At this point, you have the option to own any Gundam Mark II that was ever seen in Zeta Gundam- the AEUG version, or any of the three Titans units seen at the beginning of the series. I decided to get Titans Unit 03, the first Mk-II to be stolen by Kamille Vidan, and the first release of this figure.

The AEUG version actually has one feature this version doesn't- a special shoulder joint replacement to simulate the replacement of the lost arm with the Mk. II's shield near the end of the series. Even so, I'm desperately hoping that a Super Gundam will be made one day, and I'm going to attempt to avoid duplicates in this way.

One thing to note about the Mk. II's appearance is that it's a bit slimmer than I expected- the machine always had a bit of a beefy, powerful appearance to me, especially in comparison to the original RX-78 Gundam. The yellow thrusters on the outside of the leg (and the shape of the calf itself) have been subtly shortened to more resemble the shape of the original Gundam's calves. It's a minor thing, but noticeable, in my opinion.

The Head

The head design is very close to the RX-78, with the most noticeable difference being the lack of head vulcans. The Mk.II has an optional Vulcan Pod instead, the hardpoints for which can be seen on the sides of the head. Some light decoration surrounds them, which makes them look far less out of place than they have on other incarnations of the Mk.II over the years.

The neck is double ball-jointed, though except for some light horizontal movement the second joint doesn't add terribly much here. Tilt and swivel ranges are quite good- the "collar" section of the torso doesn't interfere until you've pitched the head back pretty much as far as it will go.

The Arms

The shoulder joints are a bit different from the norm to accommodate the Mk.II's "Movable Frame" construction- the idea being that you can make lighter, more manuverable Mobile Suits if you construct a skeleton for the machine, only armoring those areas that most need it. The shoulder is one of those places where bare frame can be seen, and due to its shape the ball-joint points straight down into the torso. Unlike the Gundam Astrays, however, the range is quite good, offering a fair amount of vertical and horizontal articulation. As I've mentioned before, it's one of those places where you can see that Bandai has learned from a past error- always a nice thing to see.

The shoulder armor is attached via a ball-joint, and the arms can raise into a 'T' position relative to the body- it's the first MSiA to be able to do that in a while. The elbows allow the arms to fold over neatly into a U, as they should, and the forearms feature hardpoints for mounting the shield. All in all, excellent arms.

The Torso

Like the torso of the EMiA Gouf, the Mk.II's torso has a ball-jointed midsection, which is located just under the traditional yellow chest vents and behind the cockpit hatch. Its range is somewhat limited, but it does allow the RX-178 to lean a bit to the left or right, though for some reason mine leans to its left better than its right. The waist doesn't have quite the range I would like, being restricted a bit by the skirt armor. With a little force, you can get the edge of the waist over the edge of the skirt, but it looks a bit odd.

The backpack is held on by a single large ball-joint, which makes it feel somewhat less solid than I'd really prefer. It's not in any danger of falling off, but it does turn easily. All four thrusters are ball-jointed and adjustable, as are the two adjustable arms which also double as the Mk.II's Beam Saber storage racks. The angle of that pair seems a bit off, as I didn't expect them to be this close to vertical. Most encouraging is the inclusion of a socket on the backpack that, to my knowledge, could have no possible use save to mount the G-Defenser. I sure hope we see one someday.

The skirt armor is standard, with flexible front plates and ball-jointed side plates. It all manages to stay out of the way of the legs quite well, though of course there is the danger of warping in the front if it's left in a single position for a long time. The side plates have a good range, and feature hardpoints for storage of the Beam Rifle or the Bazooka's magazine. The Bazooka itself can be stored on a fold-away rack on the rear of the skirt. While not lightly armed, the Mk.II can carry all its gear at one time without using its hands, which is always nice to see.

The Legs and Feet

The ball-jointed hips have a good range, and the swivels in the upper thigh allow the legs to turn 360 degrees with no problems. While the knee is pretty much the current-standard triple-joint, the shape has been tweaked somewhat to account for the Movable Frame concept, which makes the knee joints a bit more noticeable than usual. It works fine, and looks fairly decent besides. The Mk.II can kneel well enough, but one of the three knee joints- I'm not sure which- is just a bit on the weak side, so it never seems quite as stable in this position as I'd like it to be.

The ankles and feet are rather complex. At the root of it is a setup like the Gundam Second Version and Prototype Gundam, where the foot has a central "block" that attaches to the ankle. This time, the articulation isn't quite as good as that version, but less odd-looking, thanks to a more sophisticated foot design. The actual foot is attached to this block by a hinge, which gives the articulation a needed extra kick. The ankle and foot have a reasonably good range in all directions, and the ankle armor is unobtrusive, though it's a bit easy to pop off on my figure.

Then we have two nice touches originally seen on the Master Grade kit, which are unnecessary to the figure, but I really like anyway. The first is that the Mk.II's "toes" are further hinged, and can be folded down- it can't actually stand on its tiptoes, and I have no idea what else you'd do with it, but it's neat anyway- it's a feature I always liked on the MG Mk.II. The second feature is the ankles' piston assembly- as the ankles move front to back, the pistons move, just as they should. It's a nicely engineered, and another totally useless feature I always thought was neat.

Paint and Decoration

Like all EMiAs, the Gundam Mark II is fully painted, and looks really good. There is a minimum of the slight sloppiness you often see with MSiAs, though it is still there. While the torso vents are pretty clean, there is a tiny streak of red on the Mk.II's face, to the left of the traditional red Gundam chin. The weathering effect comes off very well, though, and it does undeniably look superior to a standard MSiA. The "03" serial numbers and Titans logo are nice and sharp and clean.

The panel-inking is sharp, and they managed to make the lines more noticeable on the dark blue background than I'd have expected. For the yellow areas, red ink was used, and adds some nice detail to the brighter areas of the figure without muddying the look as black ink could have. Nice design choice.

Sculpt and Articulation gets 8/10

Paint and Deco get 9/10

Accessories

-Beam Sabers

As with all of the newer MSiA, the Mk.II's Beam Saber blades are made of a harder plastic which is less likely to bend and warp. The blades are excellent, but they're so thin that I'd advise extra caution- they could well be fragile. Even so, the blades fit the grips very well, and the grips fit in the hands very well.

The problem comes in when you store the grips on the backpack. There are a pair of indentations on each rack which are supposed to correspond to details on one side of the Saber hilt. Except that they don't. The positions of the indentations are fine, but the shapes are wrong, and so basically, the rack doesn't hold the Saber in place much at all. I would be extremely nervous about putting the Mk.II on display somewhere, unless the Sabers were either glued on or left off.

-Beam Rifle

The Mk.II's sleek Beam Rifle is reproduced well here, complete with swiveling secondary handgrip and removeable magazine. Oddly, despite the impressive shoulder range, the Mk.II has a slightly difficult time getting a two-handed grip on its Rifle. It's not impossible, and once you find the correct angles it's relatively easy, but I was surprised that that the hand wanted to pop off the wrist in what I assumed was the "correct" position. Still, the "trigger-finger" hand fits the main handgrip absolutely perfectly, and once you angle the wrist properly, the secondary grip fits its appropriate hand nicely too. There's also a peg on either side of the Rifle's butt which plugs firmly into the hardpoint on either hip.

The E-Pack fits fairly snugly to the bottom of the Rifle and I have no fears of it falling off. Fortunately, there are three- one for the Rifle, two for the shield- so some may fit the slightest bit better than others. The Rifle gets priority in my book, as none of them have shown any sign of falling off the shield yet. May as well make sure the most visible one is the best fit.

-Hyper Bazooka

Every bit as nice as the Beam Rifle. Like the Dom Second Version's Raketen Bazooka, the Hyper Bazooka's handgrip is ball-jointed, so it's easy to get the weapon into the over-the-shoulder position it was designed for. It looks natural and it's just about the best bazooka I've ever gotten with an MSiA. The magazine is detachable, and can also be mounted on the hip plates- it's really a pity it doesn't come with any spares.

-Vulcan Pod

As I mentioned above, the Mk. II has an external Vulcan Pod, to compensate for its lacking the head vulcans seen on most other Gundams. It's a nice-looking piece, which would seem to also possibly pack some additional communications equipment, judging from the antenna. The Pod locks on to the head fairly well, and holds its position nicely. Also, it doesn't seem to interfere with head movement in any significant way. Definitely a nice addition to the figure.

-Shield

The Mk.II's shield breaks two of my personal rules of MSiA shield design. The first is that it's held onto the arm by a single peg, with no handgrip to accompany it. The second is that it's a folding shield, which is accomplished by having a front section that can attach to one of two different slots on the body of the shield. On other figures, these elements have proven disastrous. Here, though, they work quite well. For now, at least- as the shield is attached and removed over time, the plastic on either side could well wear down, and once it does there's not much you can do that doesn't involve some kind of glue. Given the design, though, there's not much else you could do- I suppose time will tell...

-Extra Hands

The standard three pair are here- fists, open hands, and trigger-finger extended open hands for use with firearms. All fit their respective accessories very well- in the case of the Beam Rifle, probably the best I've ever seen. The connection to the ball-joints in the wrist varies a bit much for my taste, though- the open hands fit well enough, but the "trigger finger" hands seem to pop off with far less force. It's more than strong enough to hold the weight of the (admittedly light) weapons, but I've come to expect a few random disconnections when changing between, say, the Rifle and Bazooka. This will most likely vary from figure to figure, or even hand to hand, so I'm not going to let this affect the Accessories score.

Accessories get 8/10

Closing Remarks:

The EMiA line is shaping up pretty well so far- both the Gouf and the Mark II are well-engineered and attractive. And, while they have a few of the random flaws I associate with MSiAs- paint errors and hand issues, mainly- these seem to be fewer and slightly less pronounced. The only glaring flaw I see here that I expect to be common to all EMiA Mk.IIs is the poor hold of the Beam Saber racks. Also, the Mk.II has everything it should have- I'm pretty sure that there's nothing the Titans-version Mk.II used that isn't included here.

I paid roughly $20 for my figure, and I'm happy with it. As always, I feel that the worth of a toy is relative- but if you like this design and this color scheme, you'll like the figure, in my opinion. The second Extended MS in Action is Excellent, and hopefully, as with the standard MSiA line, will continue to improve.

-RAC 5/23/2005